Joan Wolf (6 page)

“Because most historians look only for what they want to find, not for what is there.”

“I think it is outrageous,” I said indignantly.

A little of the grimness softened from his face. “Ned thinks it’s mad to get worked up over someone who has been dead four hundred years.”

“The truth is never mad.” I had learned that from my father. “And injustice, no matter how old it might be, is never tolerable. Why, they’ve stolen his good name.”

He looked at me, and his face was transformed by a sudden blazing smile. “A beautiful mind,” he repeated. “You’re a lad after my own heart, Valentine.”

For some reason I could not fathom I found myself having difficulty breathing. I could not tear my eyes away from his face. It was very quiet here at the castle now that our voices had ceased. I could hear the stillness. Then Lord Leyburn rose to his feet.

“Come,” he said. “I don’t like to leave the horses unattended for too long.”

* * * *

Mr. Fitzallan was riding ahead of us toward Carlton as we turned from the road onto the castle grounds, and his lordship shouted to him. There was enough room for three horses to ride abreast and Mr. Fitzallan waited until we came up to him before he began walking forward again, both of us flanking his lordship. The two men began to talk of some estate matter and I let my attention wander from their words, concentrating instead on their mood. There seemed to be perfect ease and amiability between them. No trace remained of the tension that had flared earlier over the subject of my future.

His lordship was nodding gravely. “Have Ellis come to see me,” he said to his cousin. “I’ll see to it.”

Mr. Fitzallan smiled. “I already told him that.”

The earl grinned and started to answer when his eye was caught by a strange carriage reposing in his stable yard. Georgie and Sim were in the process of unharnessing a pair of very smart-looking chestnuts.

“Cartington,” Lord Leyburn said, “this is a surprise.”

“Is it?” Mr. Fitzallan looked ironic. “You have to fish or cut bait on this one, Diccon. The duke isn’t going to stand for any delay.”

The earl said something I hadn’t heard since army days in Ireland and his cousin chuckled. “Tell that to his grace,” he suggested.

At that Lord Leyburn laughed. “Perhaps I will,” he said, and turned Cavalier toward the path that led from the stable yard up to the house.

Chapter 8

I sat on Magic Moment and watched Lord Leyburn’s back for as long as it was visible. The Duke of Cartington. Here. When the earl was out of sight, I turned to find Mr. Fitzallan watching me curiously.

“Why do you look like that, Valentine?” he asked.

I stared at him, wide-eyed. “I’m not precisely accustomed to having dukes come to call,” I said. “And the Duke of Cartington! That’s a name almost as famous as the Earl of Leyburn’s.”

He looked amused. “Diccon would be pleased with that ‘almost.’ And yes, between them the Fitzallans and the Bevils ruled the north for centuries. The present duke is a more powerful man than Diccon, however, as the Bevils never withdrew from government as did my family. But Diccon is still quite a prize and the duke would not be at all loath to capture him.”

‘ ‘A prize?’’ I asked in puzzlement. We had both dismounted by now and I looked up at him, squinting my eyes a little against the sun. He was really the most enormous man.

“A marriage prize,” he explained with perfect and natural kindness. “The duke has a daughter and there has been talk of a match between Diccon and Lady Barbara.”

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. I couldn’t find the power to say a word.

“Actually, it would be a very good match for Diccon as well,” Mr. Fitzallan was going on. His voice sounded a little strained. “The Fitzallans have always made dynastic marriages. Diccon’s mother was the daughter of the Scots Duke of Oxnam.” He smiled a little wryly. “Dukes seem to be running in the family of late. And Diccon’s twenty-seven. It’s time he married.”

“Does—does he love Lady Barbara?” I asked faintly.

“Who knows, with Diccon? But that wouldn’t necessarily weigh with him. Diccon is fully conscious of his duty to his name. And Lady Barbara is extremely beautiful.” Uncharacteristically, he ran his hand through his hair. “She would have to be that,” he said. “Diccon is not so dutiful that he’d marry a plain woman.”

I looked at the tops of my boots. “Well, one can understand that. After all, he is so very beautiful himself.”

“I know.”

Mr. Fitzallan sounded rather grim and I raised my eyes to his face. “I sometimes think Diccon has been too blessed by the gods,” he said. “He’s spoiled. He has too much, he does everything too well. A little setback would be good for him.”

“He’s a very good landlord and patron.” I felt somehow I had to stand up for the earl.

“Unquestionably. And he’s an excellent high sheriff and justice of the peace. There isn’t a county in England better run than this one is. He is always accessible and he is always just.”

I kept my eyes on his face and remembered the discussion over my future. “But he doesn’t like to be crossed.”

“He never is, not since his father died.” Mr. Fitzallan looked rueful. “I’m no match for him.”

I saw his lordship’s face in my mind and felt a pain squeeze at my heart. “Who is?” I asked very softly.

“I don’t know. I’m afraid it’s not Lady Barbara. If he wants her, she’ll marry him. That’s why the duke is here.”

Mr. Fitzallan looked as unhappy as I felt. I took his horse’s reins and led both horses toward the stable.

The Duke of Cartington stayed for two days, and during that time I saw very little of Lord Leyburn
.
He spent most of his time with the duke, out on horseback or with a gun. I spent my time in the stable.

For some unaccountable reason, I was feeling very melancholy and lonely. Never before had the evils of my situation seemed so insurmountable. And yet I could not wish I had followed another course. I had never been one for regrets.

The Duke of Cartington left, and the day after his departure Lord Leyburn went into York for a few days. For centuries the Fitzallans had maintained a house in York, so Mr. Fitzallan informed me, and in York the Earl of Leyburn counted for rather more than the king.

I continued to feel restless and melancholy, and gravitated to the piano as if only music could release me from the oppressive mood that I could not account for. It was the first time in too long that I had had access to a piano, and with the duke gone, I took full advantage of it.

The earl’s absence stretched from a few days to a week. Without him the house seemed strangely empty, as if all its vitality had been drained from it. Even the flowers in the garden seemed less brilliantly colored.

I was sitting at the piano picking out a melody in counterpoint, over and over again, when there came through the open windows the sound of voices on the drive. I went to the window and looked down.

Lord Leyburn was back. He was seated on the high seat of his phaeton, effortlessly holding his high-spirited pair at rest and looking down at Mr. Fitzallan, who stood on the drive beside him. He was laughing. As I watched, Robert went to the horses’ heads, and his lordship, in a beautiful, fluid movement, swung himself down to the ground. He glanced up at the house, unaware of my presence. He was hatless and his thick black hair was tousled from the drive. His dark face looked fiercely beautiful in the clear sunlight. And it was then that I knew.

He had disappeared into the house and Jamie was bringing in his portmanteau before I stirred from the window. Oh no, I kept thinking over and over again, oh no, oh no, oh no.

I moved on leaden feet toward the piano bench, but before I reached it, his lordship appeared in the doorway.

“Valentine!” He gave me a smile. “I understand from Ned that you’ve been playing the keys off the piano.”

I didn’t know if I would be able to talk. I moved my lips and sound came out. “Yes, my lord.”

He went toward the instrument himself, as if drawn by a magnet, and lightly ran his fingers over the keyboard. He looked up.

“There’s to be a concert in York next week. I’ll take you.”

I could not look into his eyes and focused instead on his cravat. “Thank you, my lord.” To my astonishment my voice sounded perfectly normal.

Crosby appeared in the doorway. “My lord,” he said formally, “there is a message for you from his grace of Cartington. I put it on your desk in the library.”

A flash of some emotion I couldn’t identify went across his lordship’s face, and then he nodded, said, “Thank you, Crosby,” and left the room with his characteristic swift grace. I fled up the stairs to my room.

I understood at last why I had been so distressed by the news that Lord Leyburn was thinking of marriage. I understood at last the nature of my own feelings for him.

There had been between us, almost from the first, an affinity that I had known with no one else. My boyish guise had allowed us to learn about each other with no physical awareness to get in our way.

But now all that was changed—or at least it was changed for me. There was still that sense of spiritual affinity, but the physical was there as well. It was there in the darkness of his eyes, the fine modeling of his head, the strong slender sinews of his hands, the shape of his mouth.

God help me, I was in love with the Earl of Leyburn
.
And he thought I was a boy.

It would have been funny if it had not been so painful.

It was a pain that would get worse with every passing day. It was pain that I felt when I heard the sound of his voice, when I caught sight of his tall, lean figure, heard the sound of his footsteps coming up behind me.

I was terrified that I would betray myself. I could keep my face expressionless, my voice steady, but I could not keep myself from feeling. And the earl was intuitive. He was able to sense things that someone like Mr. Fitzallan, who operated solely on good sense and logic, would never apprehend. I supposed it was why his lordship was so marvelous with animals. But it was a danger to me; I knew it was. I was petrified he would sense the change in me. It wasn’t a logical fear, but then the earl wasn’t always logical. He was worse than logical. He was accurate.

I could, of course, tell him the truth. I thought of the scene, of his face when he discovered how I had deceived him. I thought of how his temper had flared at Mr. Fitzallan, and I prayed to God he would never look thus at me.

It was an impossible situation. My only comfort was the thought that the only person being hurt by it was myself.

Chapter 9

“When we go into York,” his lordship said to me the day after he arrived home, “we’ll have to see about getting you some decent clothes. It should have been done long ago, as Ned pointed out to me last night.” He smiled a little ruefully. “I’m afraid I’m not always as observant as I should be, lad.”

Mr. Fitzallan came in on the end of this remark. “The problem, Diccon, is that most of your clothes are as old and as worn as Valentine’s.”

The earl grinned. “True enough.”

“And if you are going to go up to London, you need some clothes, too,” Mr. Fitzallan went on relentlessly.

 “Ah.” A black eyebrow was very slightly raised. “But I don’t know yet if I am going up to London.”

Mr. Fitzallan looked as if he would like to say something further but hadn’t the nerve.

“Just so,” his lordship said with amusement.

“There is a pile of papers on your desk that needs your attention,” his cousin said stoically.

The earl looked suddenly alert. “The court papers I wanted prepared?"

"Yes."

‘‘ Good. I'l1 look at them now.’’

When he left, I looked up at Mr. Fitzallan. “Why will his lordship be going to London?” I asked.

“Lady Barbara is there for the Season. When Diccon didn’t make an immediate offer, the duke decided to let her make her come-out. She is only eighteen. And very lovely. And an heiress. Diccon is a fool if he lets her get away.”

I tried to speak lightly. “Surely there are other beautiful young heiresses in England.”

“She is a Bevil, Valentine. From Northumberland. It would be a union of the two greatest families in the north.”

It seemed that when it came to marriage alliances, Mr. Fitzallan was every bit as feudal as his ancestors. “I see,” I said a little hollowly. Then, more aggressively, “If she is such a splendid match, why don’t
you
marry her?”

There was an audible note of bitterness in his voice as he replied. “I am Diccon’s cousin, Valentine, but I am not the earl. Lady Barbara Bevil is not for the likes of me.”

It struck me suddenly that Mr. Fitzallan was not himself indifferent to the earl’s prospective bride. I had blundered and hurt him. I put my hand on his arm and said, “Any girl would be lucky to marry you, sir.”

And I meant it. I looked at his handsome face and thought how secure one would be married to a man like this. He was so kind, so considerate, so reliable. I thought of the man I loved and sighed. Next to his lordship, Mr. Fitzallan was stodgy and dull. How could I expect Lady Barbara to feel any differently? How could any girl not want to marry the Earl of Leyburn?

Later in the day I slipped out of the castle and went for a long walk on the moors.

I was finished. New clothing meant a tailor. I would have to tell the earl the truth. He would be angry, of course, but it couldn’t make that big a difference to him. I was still the same person, wasn’t I?

It was a very warm day and my jacket soon felt much too hot. I took it off, rolled up my sleeves, and walked on through the empty rolling miles of browns and greens and yellows. I was feeling strangely tired and lethargic and my legs felt heavy. Finally I threw myself down on the grass, put my hands behind my head, and stared up the high white clouds above me. What to do? What to do?

What I did was fall asleep, for the next thing I knew was the reverberation of horses hooves drumming on the ground. I sat up, a little bewildered. I saw Lord Leyburn at about the same time he saw me, for he slowed Saladin down and swung him in a wide arc around me.